A Response to Prof. John Thorp’s “Making the Case” for Blessing Homosexual Unions – Robert A. J. Gagnon

1. The two-sexes prerequisite is no little “detail” in Scripture but a core value in sexual ethics. The universal witness of Scripture to a male-female prerequisite for valid sexual unions-the flip side of which is the witness of Scripture against every form of homosexual practice-is no little “detail.” It is a core value among Scripture’s sexual ethics. It is a value held:

a. pervasively, that is, within each Testament and across Testaments; b. absolutely, that is, without exception; c. strongly, that is, as or more offensive than adultery and the worst forms of consensual adult incest; d. counterculturally, that is, in opposition to broader cultural trends.

As such, retaining the Bible’s position on this matter renders the church faithful, not frozen. Violating this foundational stance is not “dynamic,” as Thorp claims, but profoundly disobedient…

3. Jesus himself is Thorp’s main obstacle for discounting a two-sexes prerequisite. What was the basis for Jesus’ unilateral amendment of the Law of Moses that eliminated the right of men to more than one wife? Here the matter becomes embarrassing for Thorp’s position, for Jesus cited as his justification God’s creation of “male and female” in Gen 1:27 and the marriage standard of a “man” and his “woman” being joined together in Gen 2:24-two texts that Thorp seeks to circumvent by endorsing homosexual unions.

Jesus’ declared these two texts as constituting the foundation for his limitation of the number of parties in a sexual bond to two. In other words, the �~twoness’ or duality of a sexual bond is predicated on the �~twoness’ or duality of the sexes. Eliminating the significance of the latter for defining appropriate sexual bonds leaves the church without basis for a monogamy principle. God’s creation of two primary sexes is the foundation for prohibiting additional persons beyond two in a sexual bond, whether concurrently (polygyny) or serially (repeat divorce/remarriage). The union of the two sexes into one makes a third party both unnecessary and undesirable.

That was Jesus’ opinion, which should have considerably more significance than Thorp’s opinion or that of any bishop who also seeks to contravene Jesus’ view. Since Jesus lifted up Gen 1:27 and 2:24 as normative, with proscriptive implications, for all matters of human sexual ethics, it is not surprising that when Paul indicts homosexual practice absolutely in Rom 1:24-27 and 1 Cor 6:9 he has these same two texts from Genesis in the background. He simply shows himself to be a good disciple of Jesus…

5. Same-sex intercourse radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24). Genesis 1:27 links God’s image imprinted on humans with the complementary sexual differentiation of humans into male and female. Although animals are similarly differentiated, only in humans is that differentiation connected with being created in God’s image. This suggests that what humans do sexually can affect either negatively or positively the stamp of God’s image on them. It also suggests that, while male and female each have individual integrity as God’s image, the union of male and female brings together complementary expressions of the divine image into a full-orbed sexuality. Entering into a homosexual union disregards the sacred foundation on which Gen 1 predicates sexual activity and dishonors one’s God-given sex by merging with a person of the same sex as though that person were the complement to one’s sex.

Genesis 2:21-24 give a beautiful illustration in story form of the inherent complementarity of a man-woman sexual bond and so the implicit, inherent discomplementarity of a same-sex sexual bond. Woman is drawn from the “side” of the human (a better translation than “rib”). She is the missing part, sexually speaking, to a man-the missing sexual complement if one is seeking a sexual relationship with another. Man and woman may be (re-)joined into one flesh because the two emerged out of one flesh. This is a lovely picture of the basic point that men and women are each other’s sexual “other halves”-not two males or two females.